fix: disallow runaway subagent chains #5659
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Pull Request Overview
This PR adds runtime protection to prevent subagents from creating nested subagent chains. When a subagent (identified by SessionType::SubAgent) attempts to call tools that would create other subagents, an INVALID_REQUEST error is returned instead.
- Adds validation in
dispatch_tool_callto block subagent creation tools when invoked from a subagent context - Blocks
DYNAMIC_TASK_TOOL_NAME_PREFIXandSUBAGENT_EXECUTE_TASK_TOOL_NAMEtools for subagents
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| if session.session_type == crate::session::SessionType::SubAgent | ||
| && (tool_call.name == DYNAMIC_TASK_TOOL_NAME_PREFIX | ||
| || tool_call.name == SUBAGENT_EXECUTE_TASK_TOOL_NAME) | ||
| { | ||
| return ( | ||
| request_id, | ||
| Err(ErrorData::new( | ||
| ErrorCode::INVALID_REQUEST, | ||
| "Subagents cannot create other subagents".to_string(), | ||
| None, | ||
| )), | ||
| ); | ||
| } |
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This check doesn't prevent subagents from creating sub-recipe tasks, which also spawn subagents. Sub-recipe tools (with names like subrecipe__create_task_*) create sessions with SessionType::SubAgent and should also be blocked. Consider checking self.sub_recipe_manager.is_sub_recipe_tool(&tool_call.name) in addition to the existing conditions.
DOsinga
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Nov 10, 2025
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DOsinga
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we can go with this for now since we need something, but it should ideally be done in should_enabled_subagents I think
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* main: (83 commits) silence copilot on minor text issues (block#5665) fix: disallow runaway subagent chains (block#5659) chore: remove usage of non-existent env var for log dir (block#5658) clarify agent instructions (block#5655) feat: add check-everything for unified style checks (block#5650) Show errors on failure (block#5643) custom instructions for copilot reviews (block#5646) fix: prevent repeated 404 errors when accessing deleted sessions (block#5644) Flake.nix corrected main (block#5600) fix: goose recipe list can return duplicated entries (block#5645) fix: bedrock creds refresh (block#5599) Fix Claude Code provider to default to Auto mode (block#5638) (block#5642) Scheduler cleanup (block#5571) Better search paths and handling of CLI providers (block#5554) docs: description required for "Add Extension" in cli - phase 2 (block#5635) Remove some logging (block#5631) Use session IDs as task IDs for subagents instead of UUIDs (block#5398) Fix the naming (block#5628) fix: default tetrate model is broken, replace with haiku-4.5 (block#5535) (block#5587) Fetch less and use the right SHA (block#5621) ...
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* main: silence copilot on minor text issues (#5665) fix: disallow runaway subagent chains (#5659) chore: remove usage of non-existent env var for log dir (#5658) clarify agent instructions (#5655) feat: add check-everything for unified style checks (#5650) Show errors on failure (#5643) custom instructions for copilot reviews (#5646) fix: prevent repeated 404 errors when accessing deleted sessions (#5644) Flake.nix corrected main (#5600) fix: goose recipe list can return duplicated entries (#5645) fix: bedrock creds refresh (#5599)
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Signed-off-by: Blair Allan <[email protected]>
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We need to disable subagents being able to create other subagents. It might be cleaner to not even advertise the tool, but looks like it would be a bigger refactor to do so
@tlongwell-block @DOsinga Let me know if this looks like a good fix to you for the immediate term
Demo: